Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
The versatile bean
|
The cowpea is loaded with vitamins and protein
|
The cowpea makes for a tasty vegetable too.
THE COWPEA is more a bean than a pea, and it is a pulse as well as a vegetable in Asia and Africa. It is native to India and goes by the name alasande in Kannada, lobia in Hindi, karamani in Tamil, bobbarlu in Telugu and vella payuru in Malayalam.
Dietary contents
Africans employ the herb in many rituals and sacrifices. The Hausa and Yoruba tribes of Nigeria use cowpeas in sacrifices to ward off evil spirits and cure sick children. The cowpea is a common food in Africa, and some botanists even claim that it is native to Ethiopia. The Sudanese and the Ethiopians eat cowpea roots, and the tender green leaves are a popular pot herb throughout the continent. Immature snapped pods, often mixed with other foods, and green cowpea seeds (fresh, boiled, canned or frozen) are popular vegetables.
The folks of Telangana like to snack on fried bobbarlu. Roasted green cowpea seeds are popular in the U.S.A. Canned foods, soup and bean mixes incorporate this pod. Dried bean flour mixed with cereal flour makes for a highly nutritious meal. The whole plant is important as cattle feed.
Hundred gm of raw mature seed contains 338 calories, with 22.5 gm. of protein, 61 gm. of carbohydrate, 1.4 gm. of fat and 5.6 gm. of dietary fibre. The bean is rich in calcium, phosphorus, and the B vitamins - thiamine, riboflavin and niacin.
The seed is rich in lysine, arginine, histidine and phenylalanine amino acids, but it is deficient in cysteine, methionine, and tryptophan amino acids. This means that, like most plant protein, the cowpea lacks some essential amino acids that the body cannot do without or manufacture on its own. The daily diet must supply these aminos to prevent protein deficiency. Vegetarians can get around the amino profile of plant protein by mixing legumes like cowpea with cereals like wheat. The latter is rich in aminos lacking in legumes. The tender shoots contain very few calories and little by way of nutrition.
Medicinal properties
Grinding the seeds into flour improves digestibility. Raw seeds can cause indigestion and colic because they contain a chemical that inhibits trypsin and chymotrypsin, the protein-digesting enzymes in the gut. Cooking destroys these enzyme inhibitors and improves the nutritive value of the seed. The Hausa and Edo tribes of Nigeria use cowpeas, mixed with soil or oil, to treat boils.
RAJIV M.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
